Goodbye, Net Neutrality; Hello, Net Discrimination

In 2007, at a public forum at Coe College, in Iowa, Presidential candidate Barack Obama was asked about net neutrality. Specifically, “Would you make it a priority in your first year of office to reinstate net neutrality as the law of the land? And would you pledge to only appoint F.C.C. commissioners that support open Internet principles like net neutrality?”“The answer is yes,” Obama replied. “I am a strong supporter of net neutrality.” Explaining, he said, “What you’ve been seeing is some lobbying that says that the servers and the various portals through which you’re getting information over the Internet should be able to be gatekeepers and to charge different rates to different Web sites…. And that I think destroys one of the best things about the Internet—which is that there is this incredible equality there.”

If reports in the Wall Street Journal are correct, Obama’s chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Thomas Wheeler, has proposed a new rule that is an explicit and blatant violation of this promise. In fact, it permits and encourages exactly what Obama warned against: broadband carriers acting as gatekeepers and charging Web sites a payola payment to reach customers through a “fast lane.”

FCC to Release Draft Net Neutrality Rules in May

Federal regulators are expected to release draft net neutrality rules in mid-May as part of an ongoing effort to craft rules for Internet traffic that might actually hold up in court.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler said Wednesday that the agency would consider draft “Open Internet,” or net neutrality, rules at an agency meeting May 15. As we reported in February, Wheeler will propose basically the same rules that the agency had tried before, but justify them under a different part of the law.

Consumer groups have complained about that plan because they’re worried that Wheeler’s rules may not hold up in court either. A federal appeals court rejected two previous versions of net neutrality rules after finding fault in the FCC’s legal reasoning. During the latest smackdown, however, the court suggested that the FCC had some authority to impose net neutrality rules under a section of the law that gives the agency the ability to regulate the deployment of broadband lines.

Internet activists would prefer that the FCC just re-regulate Internet lines under old rules designed for telephone networks, which they say would give the agency clear authority to police Internet lines. Wheeler has rejected that approach for now. Phone and cable companies, including Comcast, AT&T and Verizon, have vociferously fought that idea over the past few years.

Wake Up, Internet — Time to Save Yourself

What if you had only three weeks before the Internet you know and love was about to disappear?

Would you spend your time binging on listicles or the final season of Breaking Bad? Or would you do something about it?

Would you email all your friends with the news? Blast your social media networks? Demand that Congress and the president keep this amazing invention from going away?

If the Internet had only three weeks left, would you take to the streets and raise hell?

I bet you would.

And here’s your chance to prove it: Because three weeks from today the Internet as we know it may not disappear, but it could be a lot closer to the precipice.

On May 15, the Federal Communications Commission will propose a new set of rules that are supposed to stop big phone and cable companies from blocking websites or discriminating against apps and services they don’t like. Only as written the rules would do pretty much the opposite.

According to numeroussources, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s proposal would allow Internet service providers like Verizon or Time Warner Cable to charge extra fees to content companies like Google and Netflix for preferential treatment, guaranteeing their content reaches end-users ahead of those that don’t pay.

Guests

New disclosures from Edward Snowden show the NSA is massively expanding its computer hacking worldwide. Software that automatically hacks into computers — known as malware “implants” — had previously been kept to just a few hundred targets. But the news website The Intercept reports that the NSA is spreading the software to millions of computers under an automated system codenamed “Turbine.” The Intercept has also revealed the NSA has masqueraded as a fake Facebook server to infect a target’s computer and exfiltrate files from a hard drive. We are joined by The Intercept reporter Ryan Gallagher.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMYGOODMAN: We turn now to our last segment, the latest on leaks from Edward Snowden. TheIntercept.org reported last week the National Security Agency is dramatically expanding its ability to covertly hack into computers on a mass scale by using automated systems that reduce the level of human oversight in the process. The Intercept also revealed the NSA has masqueraded as a fake Facebook server to infect a target’s computer and exfiltrate files from a hard drive.

Joining us now is Ryan Gallagher from The Intercept, co-wrote the piece, “[How] the NSA Plans to Infect ‘Millions’ of Computers with Malware.” Explain, Ryan.

RYANGALLAGHER: Hi, Amy. Yeah, and the story we wrote last week, really, the key thing about it is the extent to which these techniques have really rapidly escalated in the last decade. And what we can see and what we reported was that, since about 2004, the National Security Agency has expanded the use of what it calls these “implants,” which are sort of malicious software implants within computers and computer networks, and even phone networks, to basically steal data from those systems. About 10 years ago, they had, they say, about a hundred and a hundred and—between a hundred and 150 of these implants, but within the last decade that expanded to an estimated 100,000, in some reports, and they’re building a system to be capable of deploying “millions,” in their own words, of these implants.

AMYGOODMAN: The revelation around the issue of Facebook has led Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to call President Obama on Wednesday and demand an explanation. He later wrote in a blog post, quote, “I’ve been so confused and frustrated by the repeated reports of the behavior of the US government. When our engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we’re protecting you against criminals, not our own government.”

RYANGALLAGHER: Yeah, and Mark Zuckerberg was definitely very agitated, we think, about the report and seems to have got on the phone to Obama. And interestingly, the NSA later issued a—actually claimed that they hadn’t impersonated U.S. websites. However, their own documents actually say that they pretended to be the Facebook server for this particular surveillance technique, so their denial sort of doesn’t really hold up to scrutiny when compared with their own documents. And there’s a bit of sort of a—you know, there’s questions to be asked about that.

Mark Zuckerberg calls Obama to complain about NSA

Facebook founder posts frustrations on wall

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) – Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg called President Obama on Wednesday night to express frustration about the government’s spying and hacking programs.

“When our engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we’re protecting you against criminals, not our own government,” Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post Thursday afternoon.

It may seem disingenuous for the leader of a giant tech company that hoards your data (and sells it wholesale) to point an angry finger at government surveillance. But Zuckerberg’s complaint is specifically aimed at one thing: hacking.

His concerns are based on the latest investigative report from The Intercept, which revealed that the National Security Agency has weaponized the Internet, making it possible to inject bad software into innocent peoples’ computers en masse. Put simply, using the QUANTUM program, the NSA can sneak into someone’s Web browser.

The report is based on documents provided by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

In a decision that may “serve as a sorry memorial to the corporate abrogation of free speech,” a U.S. appeals court on Tuesday struck down the Federal Communications Commission’s rules on “net neutrality.”

Image: Free Press Net neutrality means that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) must treat all content the same. Internet freedom group Free Press explains that with net neutrality, ISPs “may not discriminate between different kinds of online content and apps. It guarantees a level playing field for all websites and Internet technologies.”

Reutersreports that during oral argument in the lawsuit brought by Verizon Communications Inc,

Verizon’s lawyer said the regulations violated the company’s right to free speech and stripped control of what its networks transmit and how.

Tuesday’s ruling siding with Verizon “is a game-changer,” business and technology site Gigaomreports,

because it upsets the FCC’s current practice of requiring broadband internet providers to act akin to “common carriers.” In plain English, this means that they have had to behave in a similar way to phone companies and not give special preference to one type of call (or traffic) over another, even though the FCC’s authority to regulate the broadband providers was not clear cut.

Net neutrality advocates are calling Tuesday’s ruling “disappointing,” and are warning that big telecommunications companies will be able to turn what was a move towards an open Internet into “something that looks like cable TV.”

The ruling “is poised to end the free, open, and uncensored Internet that we have come to rely on,” former FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, special adviser to advocacy group Common Cause’s Media and Democracy Initiative, said in a statement.

Craig Aaron, President and CEO of Free Press, issued a statement saying that “ruling means that Internet users will be pitted against the biggest phone and cable companies—and in the absence of any oversight, these companies can now block and discriminate against their customers’ communications at will.”

“The compromised Open Internet Order struck down today left much to be desired, but it was a step toward maintaining Internet users’ freedom to go where they wanted, when they wanted, and communicate freely online. Now, just as Verizon promised it would in court, the biggest broadband providers will race to turn the open and vibrant Web into something that looks like cable TV. They’ll establish fast lanes for the few giant companies that can afford to pay exorbitant tolls and reserve the slow lanes for everyone else,” Aaron added.

“Without prompt corrective action by the Commission to reclassify broadband, this awful ruling will serve as a sorry memorial to the corporate abrogation of free speech,” Copps added.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

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WASHINGTON — A decision this week by a U.S. federal appeals court to strike down so-called net neutrality may not only have major ramifications for Internet users in the United States.It could also have ripple effects overseas.Experts say the ruling could be a boon to other countries if innovation is hampered in the U.S.

But it could be bad news, too, for Internet users outside the U.S. because other governments could adopt similar rules and regulations.

The ruling by the United States Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia struck down a Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) order from 2010, which imposed net neutrality on broadband Internet service providers (ISPs).

Net neutrality means that ISPs are to provide equal access to all types of Internet content.

The FCC regulates interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable” in the U.S.

According to the 2010 FCC order, ISPs “shall not block lawful content, applications, services or non-harmful devices, subject to reasonable network management.” It also said ISPs “shall not unreasonably discriminate in transmitting lawful traffic over a consumer’s broadband Internet access service.”

The Washington courts ruling said net neutrality was not needed because users “can go to another broadband provider if they want to reach particular edge providers or if their connections to particular edge providers have been degraded.”

As governments and corporations around the world move to make their actions and products ever more opaque, a counter-movement is rallying around the opposite of flag of openness and transparency. Borrowing its metaphor from the programming creed of “open source,” this movement is moving beyond the world of bits and bytes to find innovative, collaborative and open solutions to a whole host of problems confronting our everyday lives. Find out more about the open source solution in this week’s GRTV Backgrounder.

Welcome to the Memory Hole

Disappearing Edward Snowden

What if Edward Snowden was made to disappear? No, I’m not suggesting some future CIA rendition effort or a who-killed-Snowden conspiracy theory of a disappearance, but a more ominous kind.

What if everything a whistleblower had ever exposed could simply be made to go away? What if every National Security Agency (NSA) document Snowden released, every interview he gave, every documented trace of a national security state careening out of control could be made to disappear in real-time? What if the very posting of such revelations could be turned into a fruitless, record-less endeavor?

Am I suggesting the plot for a novel by some twenty-first century George Orwell? Hardly. As we edge toward a fully digital world, such things may soon be possible, not in science fiction but in our world — and at the push of a button. In fact, the earliest prototypes of a new kind of “disappearance” are already being tested. We are closer to a shocking, dystopian reality that might once have been the stuff of futuristic novels than we imagine. Welcome to the memory hole.

Even if some future government stepped over one of the last remaining red lines in our world and simply assassinated whistleblowers as they surfaced, others would always emerge. Back in 1948, in his eerie novel 1984, however, Orwell suggested a far more diabolical solution to the problem. He conjured up a technological device for the world of Big Brother that he called “the memory hole.” In his dark future, armies of bureaucrats, working in what he sardonically dubbed the Ministry of Truth, spent their lives erasing or altering documents, newspapers, books, and the like in order to create an acceptable version of history. When a person fell out of favor, the Ministry of Truth sent him and all the documentation relating to him down the memory hole. Every story or report in which his life was in any way noted or recorded would be edited to eradicate all traces of him.

In Orwell’s pre-digital world, the memory hole was a vacuum tube into which old documents were physically disappeared forever. Alterations to existing documents and the deep-sixing of others ensured that even the sudden switching of global enemies and alliances would never prove a problem for the guardians of Big Brother. In the world he imagined, thanks to those armies of bureaucrats, the present was what had always been — and there were those altered documents to prove it and nothing but faltering memories to say otherwise. Anyone who expressed doubts about the truth of the present would, under the rubric of “thoughtcrime,” be marginalized or eliminated.

Government and Corporate Digital Censorship

Increasingly, most of us now get our news, books, music, TV, movies, and communications of every sort electronically. These days, Google earns more advertising revenue than all U.S. print media combined. Even the venerable Newsweek no longer publishes a paper edition. And in that digital world, a certain kind of “simplification” is being explored. The Chinese, Iranians, and others are, for instance, already implementing web-filtering strategies to block access to sites and online material of which their governments don’t approve. The U.S. government similarly (if somewhat fruitlessly) blocks its employees from viewing Wikileaks and Edward Snowden material (as well as websites like TomDispatch) on their work computers — though not of course at home. Yet.

Great Britain, however, will soon take a significant step toward deciding what a private citizen can see on the web even while at home. Before the end of the year, almost all Internet users there will be “opted-in” to a system designed to filter out pornography. By default, the controls will also block access to “violent material,” “extremist and terrorist related content,” “anorexia and eating disorder websites,” and “suicide related websites.” In addition, the new settings will censor sites mentioning alcohol or smoking. The filter will also block “esoteric material,” though a UK-based rights group says the government has yet to make clear what that category will include.

And government-sponsored forms of Internet censorship are being privatized. New, off-the-shelf commercial products guarantee that an organization does not need to be the NSA to block content. For example, the Internet security company Blue Coat is a domestic leader in the field and a major exporter of such technology. It can easily set up a system to monitor and filter all Internet usage, blocking web sites by their address, by keywords, or even by the content they contain. Among others, Blue Coat software is used by the U.S. Army to control what its soldiers see while deployed abroad, and by the repressive governments in Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Burma to block outside political ideas.

The companies, burned by disclosures they’ve cooperated with U.S. surveillance programs, are protecting user e-mail and social-media posts with strengthened encryption that the U.S. government says won’t be easily broken until 2030. Enlarge image

The NSA has tapped fiber-optic cables abroad in order to siphon off data from Google and Yahoo, circumvented or cracked encryption, and covertly introduced weaknesses and back doors into digital coding, according to reports in the Washington Post, the New York Times and the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper based on documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg

While the NSA may find ways around the barriers, the companies say they have to assure users their online connections are secure and data can’t be grabbed when transmitted over fiber-optic networks or digitally stored.

Microsoft Corp. is convinced it must “invest in protecting customers’ information from a wide range of threats, which if the allegations are true, include governments,” Matt Thomlinson, general manager of trustworthy computing, said in an e-mail. He didn’t provide details.

Internet companies including Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple Inc. are trying to distance themselves from news reports that they gave the agency data on electronic communications of Americans and foreigners or have lax security.

While the companies are trying to prevent the NSA from gaining unauthorized access to their data, they say they comply with legal court orders compelling them to provide the government information.

The NSA has tapped fiber-optic cables abroad in order to siphon off data from Google and Yahoo, circumvented or cracked encryption, and covertly introduced weaknesses and back doors into coding, according to reports in the Washington Post, the New York Times and the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper based on documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Game On

Companies are fighting back primarily by using increasingly complex encryption, which scrambles data using a mathematical formula that can be decoded only with a special digital key. The idea is to protect sensitive information like e-mails, Internet searches and digital calls.

Google has accelerated efforts to encrypt information flowing between its data centers, doubled the length of its digital keys and implemented measures to detect fraudulent certificates for verifying the authenticity of websites, according to a statement from the Mountain View, California-based company.

NSA spy programs have “the great potential for doing serious damage to the competitiveness” of U.S. companies, Richard Salgado, Google’s director of law enforcement and information security, told a Senate subcommittee Nov. 13.

“It’s very important that the users of our services understand that we are stewards of their data, we hold it responsibly, we treat it with respect,” Salgado said. “We’ve already seen impacts on the businesses.”

Government Threat

Google, Yahoo and Facebook generated $44.4 billion in advertising revenue so far in 2013 in part by mining users’ private data, according to Bloomberg Industries.

Yahoo will make encrypted connections standard by January for all its Mail users with 2048-bit digital keys, Sarah Meron, a spokeswoman for the Sunnyvale, California-based company, said in an e-mail.

Facebook, in addition to moving toward 2048-bit encryption keys, is accelerating a tactic known as “perfect forward secrecy” that prevents the NSA from deciphering the communications of users if it obtains a security code, Jodi Seth, a company spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.

Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple, and other prominent technology companies are investing heavily in stronger, 2048-bit encryption. Due to computing power constraints, it’s expected to be more than a decade before this type of encryption can be easily overcome.

Google, one of the leaders in the effort, announced in May that it would switch over to 2,048-bit encryption keys by the end of 2013. Yahoo recently confirmed to Bloomberg, which spoke with several tech companies that are investing in new encryption, that it will make 2048-bit encryption standard by January 2014 for all its Mail users. Facebook also plans to move to 2048-bit encryption, a spokeswoman told Bloomberg, and will roll out “perfect forward secrecy,” a feature that prevents snoopers from accessing user data even if they can access the company’s security codes.

His business suffered in the wake of the NSA leaks scandal because the service he provided was used by the person now most wanted in the US – Edward Snowden. SophieCo is talking to Ladar Levison, founder and owner of encrypted email service Lavabit.com, who says all he cares for is the privacy and the trust of his clients.

If it’s plugged into the internet there is a near 100% chance that the National Security Agency is monitoring it.

So how does the average American get off the control grid?

According to well known anti-virus software founder John McAfee the answer is simple.

Decentralization.

Rather than connecting to the telecom sponsored (and government integrated) internet, we bypass it completely and connect directly to each other’s devices in a peer-to-peer environment using what is essentially a distributed network architecture.

He’s been working on the new device, dubbed D-Central, for several years but has recently sped up its development in light of revelations that the NSA is tapping the digital interactions and personal correspondence of virtually every American citizen.

The new “NSA Killer” will, according to McAfee, make it difficult if not impossible for the NSA to tap into personal communications like they do today because the device would operate in what is known as a “dark web” and allow an individual to completely obscure their identity.

McAfee says with D-Central there will be no way for the government to tell, “who you are or where you are.”

The gadget, which McAfee wants to sell for less than $100, would communicate with smartphones, tablets and notebooks to create a decentralized network that couldn’t be accessed by government agencies. Specifically, it would create a small private network that would act as a “dark web” where users could communicate and share files privately.

The device would have a wireless range of about three blocks and those in range would be able to communicate with each other. McAfee has reportedly been working on the gadget for a few years but has accelerated development in recent months given the NSA leaks.

At present, he said the design is in place and they are looking for partners to help with hardware. A public prototype is expected to be ready within six months with the current device said to take a round shape with no display. This of course is assuming the project isn’t shot down by regulators before it’s ever released.

If it’s plugged into the internet there is a near 100% chance that the National Security Agency is monitoring it.

So how does the average American get off the control grid?

According to well known anti-virus software founder John McAfee the answer is simple.

Decentralization.

Rather than connecting to the telecom sponsored (and government integrated) internet, we bypass it completely and connect directly to each other’s devices in a peer-to-peer environment using what is essentially a distributed network architecture.

He’s been working on the new device, dubbed D-Central, for several years but has recently sped up its development in light of revelations that the NSA is tapping the digital interactions and personal correspondence of virtually every American citizen.

The new “NSA Killer” will, according to McAfee, make it difficult if not impossible for the NSA to tap into personal communications like they do today because the device would operate in what is known as a “dark web” and allow an individual to completely obscure their identity.

McAfee says with D-Central there will be no way for the government to tell, “who you are or where you are.”

The gadget, which McAfee wants to sell for less than $100, would communicate with smartphones, tablets and notebooks to create a decentralized network that couldn’t be accessed by government agencies. Specifically, it would create a small private network that would act as a “dark web” where users could communicate and share files privately.

The device would have a wireless range of about three blocks and those in range would be able to communicate with each other. McAfee has reportedly been working on the gadget for a few years but has accelerated development in recent months given the NSA leaks.

At present, he said the design is in place and they are looking for partners to help with hardware. A public prototype is expected to be ready within six months with the current device said to take a round shape with no display. This of course is assuming the project isn’t shot down by regulators before it’s ever released.

If true, the promise of a $100 NSA-Killer device that crushes the trillion dollar surveillance state is quite appealing and one that Americans will likely respond to with open arms should it become available on the free market. We say “should,” because there’s already talk that the D-Central privacy device may be banned in the United States because it could potentially be used for nefarious purposes.

Of course with that logic we should also ban telephones, computers, credit cards, and pretty much everything else, because criminal elements will always adopt emerging technologies for their enterprises.

The obvious, but unspoken, reason for such a ban would, of course, be that the government would lose the ability to monitor, and thus control, the American public.

According to the Future Tense Central web site McAfee’s new device will be available March 22, 2014.

In August, Lavabit became the first technology firm to shut down rather than disclose information to the U.S. government. Lavabit owner Ladar Levison closed his encrypted email company after refusing to comply with a government effort to tap his customers’ information. It has now been confirmed the FBI was targeting National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, who used Lavabit’s services. But Levison says that instead of just targeting Snowden, the government effectively wanted access to the accounts of 400,000 other Lavabit customers.

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Lavabit founder refused FBI order to hand over email encryption keys

Unsealed documents show Ladar Levison, now subject of government gag order, refused requests to ‘defeat its own system’

Court ordered Levison to be fined $5,000 a day beginning 6 August until he handed over electronic copies of the keys. Photo: Demotix/Alex Milan Tracy/Corbis

The email service used by whistleblower Edward Snowden refused FBI requests to “defeat its own system,” according to newly unsealed court documents.

The founder of Lavabit, Ladar Levison, repeatedly pushed back against demands by the authorities to hand over the encryption keys to his system, frustrating federal investigators who were trying to track Snowden’s communications, the documents show.

Snowden called a press conference on 12 July at Moscow’s international airport, using a Lavabit address. The court documents show the FBI was already targeting the secure email service before the invite was sent.

Levison is now subject to a government gag order and has appealed against the search warrants and subpoenas demanding access to his service. He closed Lavabit in August saying he did not want to be “complicit in crimes against the American people”.

The court documents, unsealed on Wednesday, give the clearest picture yet of the Lavabit case. The documents, filed in the eastern district court of Virginia, are redacted and do not mention Snowden by name. But they do say the target of the FBI is under investigation for violations of the espionage act and theft of government property – the charges that have been filed against NSA whistleblower Snowden.

On 28 June the court authorised the FBI to install a “pen register trap and trace device” on all electronic communications being sent from the redacted email address, believed to be Snowden’s. A pen register would allow the FBI to record all the “metadata” from the account including the e-mail “from” and “to” lines and the IP addresses used to access the mailbox.

Levison said that the client had enabled encryption on his email and that he could not access the email. “The representative of Lavabit indicated that Lavabit had the technical capability to decrypt the information, but that Lavabit did not want to ‘defeat [its] own system,'” the government complained.

In July, the authorities obtained a search warrant demanding Lavabit hand over any encryption keys and SSL keys that protected the site. Levison was threatened with criminal contempt – which could have potentially put him in jail – if he did not comply. Such a move would have given the government access to all of Lavabit users’ information.

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